


Can't, can't, can

by Hopeful_Foolx



Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Category: Star Trek: Picard
Genre: AU because Hugh is alive, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Because Hugh is one hell of confused, Come on, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drowning, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, I love Laris so much, M/M, Nobody said Hugh could swim so, Post-Canon, Unreliable Narrator, Water, Whumptober 2020, as if he is dead in even one of my fics we live in denial not in the real world pfff, fun times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26970637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hopeful_Foolx/pseuds/Hopeful_Foolx
Summary: It's winter on earth. Not on the whole earth, of course, but at least where Picard lives. Elnor's and Hugh's first ever actual winter. With real snow! And a real accident while coming too close to a river! It's less fun than it sounds.Chapter 1: Alternative prompt 12, for day 12: WaterChapter 2: Prompt 21: Hypothermia
Relationships: Elnor/Hugh | Third of Five
Series: Whumptober 2020 [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1945483
Comments: 1
Kudos: 12
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So... this will then conclude my contribution. While this fic has two chapters, this will be my last in this tag and fandom.

The world around him is blue. 

Dark, yes, and blue. His chest hurts, his lungs burn but no matter what, it’s beautiful. A distant part of his mind tells him that this is not how it’s supposed to be, he should not be here, it tells him, here is a dangerous place but…

It’s beautiful. 

Small bubbles of air around him and he is floating, though the pressure around him keeps him in place. It’s not warm but cold and it doesn’t bother him. 

His lungs burn. His chest hurts. 

Is he in space? Because he thinks he is, where else would he float? Float like this? Blue around him, black under him and above… He can’t look in that direction and he has a distinct memory of fighting, of trying to get there but his limbs are not his own and he is only here in that he is looking through eyes that belong to him. A long time ago he fought against floating, but was it a long time ago? What is time even? He can’t move and he doesn’t need to, he is floating for that reason, right?   
His eyes stay open and he has no control over them. Control. Control, he thinks about control and how it’s gone. He can only lose something he once had, right? 

The bubbles around him are faster and a shadow cuts through the blue. Blue. There is something about the blue that- 

He can’t end the thought when someone grabs him and it tingles, tingles tingles tingles…

He moves but doesn’t and while he knows the light is closer than the darkness, direction stops making sense and it’s dark all the same. 

Something is so so wrong.

“ _ Please _ , wake up!” a searing pain on his cheek and then he can’t breathe, there is only water in his lungs and it’s all he knows, all he can do, cough up water and it doesn’t stop. He feels it he hears it and it chokes him, he tries to breathe in and promptly swallows down more of it, triggering his gag reflex once again. It’s all that exists, water in his burning lungs, pain in his chest. It takes forever until he can suck in a breath and everything is white and grey and he falls backwards, still coughing weakly, chest heaving and he blinks into cold sunlight, a sky too brightly blue, hurting his head even more, and his head  _ hurts _ . It pounds with breaths he didn’t take and while it shouldn’t feel hot it does and he has not an inch of interest in discovering why it shouldn’t feel that way. Air is nothing more than the absence of water in his lungs and he stays like that until he hears a static he didn’t realize fade.    
Elnor is next to him, dripping wet and shaking, his face pale and cheeks, nose and eyes red. He is kneeling in the snow and wipes water from his face or perhaps it’s tears. Snow. So much glistening snow, it’s on his clothes, it’s all around them. His long hair is loose and flat and his hands pale, and Hugh needs a moment to understand that he just pulled him out of the water. He wants to say so but can only cough. There is no more water in his lungs and he breathes in air that is searingly cold. His coat lies next to him and he can’t remember that he took it off. 

“The ice, it just… broke. I couldn’t reach you and I thought…” he tucks his hair back and sniffs, not from the cold water Hugh knows, “I couldn’t  _ find _ you and I thought you were not breathing” Oh, he very much does. If not he wouldn’t feel it that way because every breath hurts from throat to chest. 

“We need to get back” Back? He rolls onto his side and nods. His head is still swimming and he involuntarily looks at his fingers, blue fingertips. While Elnor is shaking, he himself is not. His skin hurts, can that happen? 

“We need to get back” he repeats and while his hand can’t be warm, it’s still warmer than Hugh’s. They can’t be far, can they? His head doesn’t stop hurting and water drips onto his shoulders, far from where? He doesn’t want to move when even staying unmoving is nothing  _ but _ pain. They should have comms, they should be able to call someone but getting to feet he doesn’t feel is too much of an effort to have energy to think left. He only stumbles and looks down, white and white and only snow, Elnor keeps talking and he doesn’t hear. He doesn’t feel his hands. He doesn’t feel his face, but his skin hurts, every inch of it.. Footsteps in the opposite direction and they follow them until white turns to sandstone and somewhere there are stairs and somewhere else are voices he can’t listen to.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My motivation for this came from me being caught in a rainstorm and being so freaking cold. But this? This is literally just Fluff. Also, I'll probably go back to clean this up because I've only really read through it one time but I needed to act fast, soory :/

Elnor thought the worst part was getting back to the house. He had one arm around Hugh, half holding him upright, half keeping him from falling asleep. They didn’t talk the entire way, not a single word, all energy focused on moving, walking. He’s lost his comms underwater, a mistake, a lot of mistakes, but he couldn’t- 

It’s not the worst part. Walking and moving gives them something to do at least, until they get to the stairs, to the house, and only when the warmth washes over him he realizes that he hasn’t stopped shivering on the way, but also didn’t feel it anymore. It shakes him apart as soon as they are inside.

For a moment he thinks the worst part is that Hugh does still not say a single word, barely even reacts to anything when he sets him down on the nearest surface to get someone, anyone. It’s Laris who steps into the room a moment later, taking one look at them and rushing over and asking questions and while he does answer, Hugh doesn’t. He just stares ahead, arms wrapped around himself as if he is here and not, as if he is frozen in place. 

“We didn’t see there was water, just snow” he explains, muscles aching and cramping with how cold he still is, shaking with how he can’t stand still, can’t sit still, “and then we walked and there was a crack and-” he stops when a violent shiver runs through him, not only because of the cold. It’s because he couldn’t  _ find _ him at first. Because when the ice gave out, he ducked back in surprise and then he looked around before he realized and he wasted time with that. It’s because he didn’t take his comms off or even called for help but just went into the water himself and he couldn’t  _ find _ him when the cold engulfed him like a painful blanket. All had been just water, nothing else, just water and he had tried to get to him and then couldn’t. He shivers because for a terrifying moment, he didn’t breathe. He wants to count that as the worst moment - the moment he thought Hugh didn’t breathe. Nothing could compare to that feeling, so similar to the day he thought he’d lost him, on the Artifact then. Snow, ice, water, nothing had cut through to him in that moment, nothing could even come close to him - he had been frozen, yes, but with fear, seemingly endless but only lasting a second, really, before relief filled him when Hugh started to breathe again. Laris telling him to leave and get a warm shower is not as bad, and even if he doesn’t want to leave, he is of more use when he is not freezing himself.

And still, all of it - all the situations and moments, all of them were not as bad then when it’s over. When Elnor is back from showering, and he tried to hurry but couldn’t, wearing the warmest clothes he owns now. This is the worst part. Afterwards. When they don’t have anything to do, really. When he has time to think and he can do that now, starts and then can’t stop. 

He drapes the covers over Hugh when he is back in their room, tucks them around him so he maybe gets a little warmer. It’s guilt that he feels, not the motivation for his actions, but still there - he is capable of swimming, he should have gotten to him sooner, he should have known the area had been unsafe - what is he a warrior for? To act like a child when he sees snow, apparently. In the end, they got both wet anyway. He still can’t really get it out of his head. He is also still cold himself, not as much as before, but still. As to Hugh, he is still shivering, Elnor can hear his teeth chattering, even with the thick blanket on top of him. 

“Are you still cold?” he asks quietly and pulls up another blanket from the stack he got them

“Can- Can’t- st-st-stop-p” he gets the mumbled answer and frowns at it, but he is saved from action when Laris enters the room and hands him a warm bottle, before putting a hand on his cheek and shaking her head.

“You better get under the covers with him, you were in the water too” she puts the other heating device under Hugh’s blankets, and Elnor half hopes he’ll stop shivering now, but he doesn’t. 

“Come on, I know you’re not usually this shy with contact. Body heat is going to help him warm up, Elnor” She rolls her eyes and he can hear it too. Like he’s waited for the word, he just slides next to Hugh and takes his ice-cold hands in his. 

“Is that better?” 

“Ye- Yes” He barely registers that Laris leaves them and just inches closer. Even though Hugh is dry now, he is still freezing and his hair is damp. The room is warm, or it should be, but Elnor feels the chill inside of him anyway. He has his own hair tied back so it’s not in the way. He knows Hugh sometimes wakes up with hair all over him, and while he always says that he doesn’t mind, now is not the time. He extends his arms under their blankets

“Come here” He isn’t surprised when Hugh just snuggles close to him. He feels like an icicle, yes, but also, holding him is something Elnor did before and very much enjoys. Now it helps both of them - Hugh to get warm, and Elnor to feel less guilty. Or, it will, hopefully. If he does something good now, to make up for it. He is half convinced that Hugh has fallen asleep when the hand in his twitches and he sighs deeply.

“Stop” 

“What?” He sighs again and then shrugs the blanket higher over themselves, so that they are more in a cave than on a bed. 

“You are basically radiating with guilt. Stop. There is no reason to feel guilty, Elnor, I’m  _ fine _ ” 

“You are very clearly  _ not  _ and there is, because none of that should have happened” Hugh sighs and moves to squint upwards at him. 

“Yes, but still not your fault. I’ll only see it as that when you show me how you made the ice appear there” 

“I did not, but I should have known, I’m supposed to protect you and I did a very poor job so far” Hugh sighs again and then he is slowly sitting up. He rubs his eye and his expression is stern and earnest

“Is that about the Artifact again?” It is not. Not at all. Maybe, a little. They had this discussion far too often by now and he can’t look him in the eye.

“You don’t have to protect me all the time, I am not a child” Elnor wants to chime in to tell him that he is very aware of that, but he isn’t finished yet, “And I hope you don’t feel the need to protect me when we are literally in Picard’s home, because then I’d politely ask Laris to check  _ you _ over, or meditate some sense into you. Whatever works best” 

“You are still freezing” Elnor remarks instead of an answer when he can’t think of a satisfying one, but it’s a good start, “For a moment I thought you were not breathing - like back then” That’s the point. In an entirely different situation, the same problem. Hugh sighs and shifts to settle down next to him again. 

“I am  _ now _ ,” he starts and hesitates, both in answer and in movement, before he takes Elnor’s hand and presses his lips against it, “See? Breathing and alive” They do that a lot. With pulse points and scars and breathing, it sounded strange but works. For the first time since the morning, Elnor feels himself relax and nods. They stay silent for some time and again, he is nearly sure he has fallen asleep. But he is not, because suddenly, and in his defense, it does sound very sleepy, he chuckles.   
“I wanted to say alive and  _ warm _ but that doesn’t work just yet” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading <3


End file.
